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When Talk Thirty To Me received a second submission that followed the same theme as GC33’s submission, but from a woman’s perspective, let’s just say we were on it like white on rice. Check out expectations about your 30s and the reality of living them from Kelly over at Gum In My Hair.

I lived my twenties in a sort of out of order fashion. At 23, I decided I was ready to settle down, and I got myself

First came love, then came marriage, then came?

hitched. Finally, five years later, I realized (in the words of GOB Bluth) I’ve made a huge mistake. So, at 28, I took the plunge and filed for divorce. I quickly jumped into another relationship that was just about the exact opposite of what I had experienced for the last seven years of my life, but unfortunately, it was just not the right timing. I’ve spent the last year and a half partying like it was going out of style. Or partying like I was 24.

Yeah, apparently, I had to go back and relive some of my youth and get all the crazy binge drinking and late nights on a weekday while still holding down a job that was not just a job, but also a career. You know, that in between time between “You crazy kids, get off my lawn!” and “Now, can I roll my existing 401K plan into this new one?”

Come to find out, as exhausted as I am after doing my transition about six years after I was supposed to, it was pretty essential to me growing up and freaking love being 30.

I turned 30 a year and a few months ago, and while the date never meant all that much to me, I could tell it was a new era in my life that was beginning. Funny thing is I was never afraid of turning 30. So much of my twenties had been so dreadful; I was looking forward to putting that decade behind me.

What am I looking forward to the most in my thirties? I’m really looking forward to living my life chronologically. And I’m not saying get hitched again, buy a sensible car, a house in a safe neighborhood and start popping out offspring.

I’m looking forward to learning life lessons the way they were supposed to be learned. I didn’t learn a lot of my limits until I was 30 years old. But now that I have the basics (what I need in a relationship, how I want to be treated, what keeps me happy, etc.) in place, I can’t wait to see what new lessons 30 has in store for me. Is this the decade that I really come into my own career-wise? Or is this the decade that I decide I want to go live in a houseboat?

It’s a brand new fucking decade and I have no plans, no attachments and no wrinkles yet!

I’ll never understand why this decade frightens people so much.

Is it because of our goals? You know all those plans we made when we were 18? 21? 25?

Yeah, we’re not those ages anymore. Our lives are vastly different (unless you are one controlling, anal retentive sonofabitch) than they were when we were that age. My God, we’ve learned so much since then, why should we stick to those ridiculous goals.

Start over. Sit down and think, what does the me I am today want to do, instead of holding on to what a you in the past wanted to do.

Fuck. I mean, if you can believe it, four years ago, I was trying to have a baby because I thought it would save a marriage that was already well past saving.

Thank God I don’t have THAT goal anymore.

In the end, yeah, our twenties are important. Yeah, there’s lots of booze, lots of crazy sex and endless late nights. But all that leads to a more informed, well-rounded person entering his or her thirties.

And sure, or knees may crack while we’re going at it, but we fuck like gods.

“I was trying to have a baby because I thought it would save a marriage that was already well past saving.”

It was only in my 30s that I witnessed firsthand the concept of the “Marriage Saving Miracle Baby” in my other married friends. The ones who succeeded looked envious when I told them about my divorce. The ones didn’t have a baby got divorced. No exceptions.